SOUNDS OF BLACKNESS MIX SACRED WITH SECULAR STYLE

John LitweilerCHICAGO TRIBUNE

If you can imagine a 30-voice gospel choir that both George Frederic Handel and Sly Stone would enjoy, you have an idea of what Sounds of Blackness is about.

Sacred material and secular style mingled in their Friday concert at Medinah Temple, part of Performing Arts Chicago`s DejAvant series, and indeed they had the audience on their feet for much of the concert. It was Ann Nesby in particular who brought excitement with her traditional-styled singing of untraditional songs.

They`ve enjoyed several hit singles from their heavily produced CD, ''The Evolution of Gospel,'' released last year, and most of the concert was taken from that disc. But the very idea of an ensemble performing the history of gospel music, from African sources to the present, begs comparison with Duke Ellington`s ''My People,'' and Sounds of Blackness offered no similar quality or variety of style.

Much of what they sang was fine indeed, particularly in selections that featured the choir unaccompanied.

A stylized arrangement of the spiritual ''Ah Been `Buked'' invoked the traditional jubilee choir spirit. The richness of the voices, the fine gradations of dynamics and the bouncing of the melody from section to section in ''Hallelujah Lord'' suggested modern harmonies applied to 18th Century counterpoint.

The ensemble`s style changed when instruments were added; the selections with 10-piece band accompaniment-including two synthesizers and two electric basses-at times threatened to drown out the choir. It took a thoroughly dynamic performer, singer Ann Nesby, to provide focus to the music. She took the lead role, her soprano at times rising to the stratosphere, in Sly Stone`s ''Stand''; she then preached, sang and introduced a succession of briefer soloists in ''Optimism.''

Indeed, Nesby exuded energy enough to light the Medinah Temple by herself, perhaps most of all as she shouted the slow, then fast-tempo encore